Cannot attach debugger to w3wp

Question

I\'m debugging an ASP.NET application but sometimes cannot find w3wp neither in Visual Studio process list (Menu: Debug -> At

Answer 1

Make sure you run VS as an administrator.

Answer 2

When you reset IIS or IIS is not running, you need to make a call to the server, when you hit the server for the first time the w3wp process starts.

Answer 3

Quick fix for this, when debugging WCF services in Visual Studio:

1. Pop open your client app's web.config file.

2. Find the endpoint entry for the service that isn't appearing in Attach To Process.

3. Hit Ctrl+Click on the endpoint url, so that it loads the service window in Visual Studio's internal browser.

That's it. IIS will fire-up and you can now pop back over to your service and find W3WP.exe in the processes list.

Also, make sure "Show Processes From All Users" is checked.

Answer 4

Look closely at the URL of the page you are debugging in the off chance that it changed to a different server - something that may rarely happen but happened to me. This falls under the category of "check your assumptions".

Answer 5

I also encountered the same problem. Just build the project again. It would then show up the w3wp.exe in the attach process list.

Answer 6

Also when the attach to process window is open in the bottom left there is a checkbox 'Show processes from all user' make sure this check box is checked then it will show up. You may need to run visual studio as administrator to too. Hope this helps.